Simplify your daily life
Sometimes, you speak to people who want to change, but attack it from such a narrow angle that you wonder how it’s ever going to make a difference for them. I personally think that small changes have only a small impact. I don’t mind big changes, such as changing jobs, moving to a new city or locking down your domain from big changes.
From time to time, I simply re-assess what I do, where I am (in life), how my family is doing and how I can gain time and minimize what I do to maximize its impact. Good o’le 80/20 rule.
Here are some of the changes I’ve done in my personal life in the past 6 months:
- Moved to OpenSource software for most of my needs
- Dropped Google Gmail & Friends, Microsoft Hotmail, del.icio.us & any chat software (I’ve been told this is considered radical and anti-social…)
- Created a better family budget that wasn’t overly optimistic (does wonders to reduce your stress)
- Killed the MediaWiki install I had
For work, I’ve also took a few actions which I think will let me focus on my work, and not get bogged down with details:
- Automated backups using Tivoli CDP
- Let my email come instead of fetching it
- Use my desktop wallpaper to manage incoming file attachments
- Minimized my presence online (internet & intranet)
All these changes, some quite large, others a little smaller, have made a big difference. I’ve shaved a few hours every week that I can use for something else. I can focus. Less truly is more.